My Ever Changing Moods

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

I am noticing a trend in some of the blogs I run across. It is so disturbing because they are blogs written by much younger women than moi...they are blogs that actually bash my beloved series, Sex And The City and my even more beloved, Carrie Bradshaw! Gasp...take a minute...the horror!!!

In my ever changing moods I don't understand the whining. These blogs state that Carrie lied, that the series damaged a certain age group because well, whine, whine, whine, they all picked up, moved to Manhattan and what??? Their lives were NOT a non-stop Sex And The City episode? Are you kidding me? You are going to take such a sacred show to so many of us in MY age group and cry a river because you thought all it took was to move to the big city and voila....you would be living the life???

The latest whine fest is an upcoming, off Broadway production called, Hot Mess In Manhattan..all derived from a Carrie Bradshaw lied sort of premise...

Really?? Okay...this was my last straw!!

This show meant more to me and women and some of my closest friends than any other show in the history of television! It was a liberating, in your face, fashion love-fest. It gave us strong women, strong personalities, a love of the bond of friendship, a love of the bond with the city, a love of the bond of men and a very liberating take on a love of the bond of just plain, sex! Never did the show promise a sparkling fairy tale to the droves of women that decided to take to Manhattan!! For my age group, it was a great tale! And, I dare say, a tale that some of us could actually achieve with hard work, years of hard work, lots and lots of hard work, never ending blood, sweat and tears. Not a ticket to arrive in the city, a smile on our face and a promise to live the good life. My age group knew and knows that nothing comes easy, we worked and worked and then worked more for those Manolo heels or those Jimmy Choo heels or that fab bag or apartment or house or any other life that we set out to carve for ourselves. We knew the show was a dream, an escape from reality, a very fun outlet for many of us on Sunday evenings! Did we REALLY think that we would all attain THAT certain couture outfit or THAT specific black bra. No. But, we could certainly find the next best thing that fit the illusion and still have the satisfaction that we had a similar look but not THE look because let's face it...none of us had the $20,000 smackers to plunk down on the ballgown that Carrie wore. Nor did she. We knew that. It was OUR fairy tale. Let us be happy with it. None of us go around whining because oops....poor me, I didn't get the Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle. Newsflash.....it was JUST a show.

So, in Carrie's words to the one time lover, Aiden....Please, just shut up!!!

Let Carrie and ther girlfriends live. Go start your own lives, make your own way and stop blaming, Carrie Bradshaw for your non-Manhattan life. Go burn your own path, make your own way, make your own name. That was the spirit of the show....Now, just go....

Monday, July 16, 2012

The summer is slipping by so quickly!! The Co-Ed returned home in early May after her freshman year at college. It seemed like we had a whole lot of time looking at the months that were ahead of us. I am now looking at the calendar and noticing that we are midway through July!

In my ever changing moods, time seems to just move by at rapid speed, these days. Seriously, where does the time go? I have started the dorm lists, again. You know, the supplies that they never think they need, want, will ever use? But, that they are actually glad to have once they are deep into their campus life? But, it just seems like I was doing this for her freshman year. We were unsure, scared, nervous, wanted to make sure all bases were covered. Overbought things that never got used so those items are on my what NOT to even mess with list, this time. It is funny how just one year makes such a difference. Time...it is our friend.

Last year, this same time, I was a wreck. I was buying out places like Bed, Bath and Beyond, Ikea, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot. By the time we were packed and heading down the road for moving in day, we looked like we were taking triplets off to college. How did we know? We didn't. This year, I do. This year I am the seasoned college parent. I am now watching the first time freshman parents freaking out, buying out the stores, lists in hand. I would like to offer them advice but I don't want to intrude on their frantic trips to the stores. This year, I know to make the lists, go and begin purchasing items, a bit at a time, pack as you go, get the rest of the stuff out of the storage bins and we will be rockin' and rollin' down the road, again, in August.

This year, I will be the calm mom, all smiles and helpful, moving the gear onto the sorority floor of the co-ed's dorm. Last year, I was the mom full of nerves, sick stomach, clutching a box of tissues. I was full of doubt, full of worry, full of tears. Freshman move in day was really just torture. The college had it all down to a science, and in hindsight, I can see why they had the parents gather in a large auditorium, handed out tisses and notecards, and gave you 45 minutes of slide shows and sappy music to cry your eyes out, write meaningful notes to your freshman, and then go back to the kids to say goodbye. I mean, cry a river...that was me!! You could tell the first time parents compared to the parents who had done this, before. They were looking at their watches, hoping to get the heck out of Dodge while the first timers were clinging to any and all last minute times we had with our kids.

But, freshman year was great for the co-ed, she pledged a sorority (my old sorority) and she is at my old campus. So, this all made things a bit easier on my worry scale. She made friends, learned how to manage on her own, came home occassionally, and with each visit, I saw her maturing and becoming more and more independent. The summer came so quick that it was hard to believe she was heading back home. Because, well, something else happens when they are away. The mom, me, myself....the mom grows and becomes independent of the old life. I had two business ventures in full swing and I just really let myself take off. Time was all that I had, now. Time was now a good thing! My days were crammed with time with my bread business and time building my clothing boutique. I became me, again. I mean, I have always been me but I was now not someone's mom sitting at games or dance lessons or 4H meetings. I was totally free to be me! I was afraid with both of us growing in new ways, we would totally clash on her first summer home. But, no. Not at all.

I come and go and tend to business, she comes and goes with friends and her job, J comes and goes. We all sometimes have dinner or breakfasts as a family but more often, not. We are all crazy busy so many days we are all just running out the door with a quick hello or hug. But, this is what, as parents, we hope to accomplish and see. This independence, this free spirit. What the parent didn't realize is that in all of this time, the parent also became the independent free spirit. Who knew that time would be our friend?

Sunday, July 15, 2012

I have been doing some much needed computer clean up work...you know, cleaning out old files, deleting old email contacts, cracking up over old pictures, unfriending silent/train wreck/stalker like "friends" on Facebook, looking for lost documents...the usual ho hum work that occassionally needs to be done. Anyway, in the midst of my cleaning, I started through my Favorites, and what did my eye find? Yes, you guessed it, this old blog.

In My Ever Changing Moods, I decided to start from the beginning and read. I kept smiling and laughing and remembering that girl that decided to blog about the next steps in her life. The paths she would conquer, the roads she would travel, the new life she would lead once her one and only went off to make her way in collegiate land. I loved every minute of my reading. I had forgotten so much of what had been written and was astounded at just how far this girl had come! It has been over a year since my last blog post...a LIFETIME in blogging land!! So much has changed in my life, in my co-ed's life, in my journey, in the blogging world, itself!

Blogs have come so far from when I started my blogging journey. Most resemble sleek and glossy pages of magazines with pictures of fashion, food, cars, kids, every single thing under the sun. The more I read the pages of my blog, I remembered how much I loved exploring my days, my thoughts, my feelings, the changes my life was taking. I decided that for as high tech as life has become, I still have an old school heart and soul that likes to blog just for the sake of writing a blog. So, now that I've got the old writing bug, back, what better time to start up, again? Do people read me, do people care, am I looking for an audience...I can't answer that but I know that all I want to do is to bring old school blogging back. I have explored many roads since our last chat and I look forward to my continued adventures in my ever changing moods.

Get comfy, get ready, or run for the hills and block my fan page on Facebook. Since I've been gone, much has changed, and I am sure you will be on the edge of your seats, just waiting to hear what a middle aged, empty nester, (are those REALLY terms that I am now using to describe myself??), has been doing with her life, her thoughts, her time...

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Hello from way back in February!! How crazy can it be that so much time went by at such a fast pace? Here I am looking at the month of April, aka, My Birthday Month, or when the sun opened up and bestowed a greatness to the earth...okay, kidding, kidding. Anyway, the important thing is it is April, not ice and cold February, and all things are full steam ahead! Except for my blogging.

In my ever changing moods, who knew just a little over a year ago, when I started to freak about what to do with my new time on my hands, that I would start a bread business, help the cheerleader on her collegiate path, start another business, Girl With Far Away Eyes, and be forced to come out of denial that college is no longer something off in the future?

Yes, in two months, I will have a graduate. I guess, that technically, she is no longer even the cheerleader. WHAT??? That ship is over and sailed...cue the sobbing. So, she will be the graduate all summer and then what? The Co-Ed?? She is excited to start the next journey and I am excited, too.

Cosmic Charlie is doing very well and I am a month away from farmer's market opening, again, for the season while I still have my gig at the coffee house!

Girl With Far Away Eyes is a little shop within a building of shops/booths. I like to describe it as the girl who likes to have fun, loves to sing, loves a soiree, loves all things fashion, loves music, her head is in the present but part of her loves all things 60s and 70s...it's hip, fun, funky, resale clothing for the fashion minded girl.

The cheerleader cheered her last game and hung up her poms. She got a summer job in a new ice cream shop. She is currently interviewing for a couple of scholarships and counting down the days until she graduates.

College orientation, room assignments, class assignments all await us in June.

The graduation soiree needs to be planned and executed.

I have gone from the Ever Changing Moods girl trying to figure out her next step in life to being the Ever Changing Moods girl with a whole lot of life!

Anyway...I am scarce, I wanted to tell you why, I will understand if you write me off, quit following, erase me. But, I am not leaving. I just don't have the time to blog and I hate when I follow blogs that I love and all of a sudden, you are left hanging, waiting, wondering...so, for now, I say I am on hiatus. But, I am sure when I have that mental breakdown, er, when we take the cheerleader to college, I will be back with a need to sort it all out.

So, if you want to follow my Cosmic Charlie fan page or my soon to be Girl With Far Away Eyes page, on Facebook, I will be there. If not, I will be back when summer ends.

Go out and live your life's motto!! Experience your ever changing moods!! Don't forget to sing loudly while doing it all!! Have a soundtrack for your mind and life.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Well, it isn't really, THE END, but I have hit a point in this crazy senior year, when this song continues to be on replay in my mind. It is almost March, we are still in the winter of the never ending ice storms, snow storms and freeze your butt of cold, and we are beginning to gain momentum to graduation.

In my ever changing moods, I have lived in denial that this time frame would sweep in and capture our lives. How did I go from walking a cute preschooler into her first day of preschool to watching her cheer her last Varsity home game, ever? Who knew that time could move so quickly.

Bittersweet is the perfect term for what a parent feels at this point in time. On one hand, I look at this beautiful, amazing, energetic, argumentative ball of energy that is becoming a woman and I beam with pride! Then, my mind shifts back to newborn days, toddler days, milestones, each year in school, the years that I thought I would pull my hair out, the years that were so happy, and it all gets jumbled up. How did we go from her playing in her bathtub and piling bubbles on her head to the very confident, ready to take on the world girl?

I have seen the changes coming for the past couple of years and it really hit home when she started driving and got her car, last year. She was gaining more independence, and in a sense, so was I. She was shifting gears to move up in her life, more, and I was shifting gears as I had to figure out my new role as mom. Her independence has driven me to my independence in so many ways. It was the year that I got to become moi, again. I no longer needed to hold a hand, wipe a tear, clean up spilled juice. Well, okay, there are other kinds of tears and other kinds of spills, but you get what I am saying. So, I also took back my life, started a business, getting ready to start another buiness, took back my fashion, my music, I am me. I mean, I have been me, my whole life, but my role changed over the years and now I am back.

I feel like we are two women on the brink of upcoming adventures. Her next adventure will be saying hello to college, campus life, a roommate, a possible sorority. It will be like entering into the scary doors of preschool, again, but without her mom. My next adventure will be an open canvas along with my already in progress adventures. It is exciting for both of us and yet scary, mind numbing and tear inducing, for me.

She has become the young woman I had hoped she would. When she was a baby, I would sit and rock her in her Grateful Dead inspired nursery and I would dream of the kind of young woman she would become. Now, I sit, alone, and dream of how I hope the next phase of her life will be and what kind of woman she will become. My job is not ending, I just have to hope that she can carry on with the path that I have set forth for her, without me to constantly guide.

So, as I sit and watch her lasts, right now...her last games, her last cheer competitions, her upcoming last prom, I have to remember that the end is not really the end. The end is just a beginning to new firsts that will eventually end, too, and go on and on. I have learned that life is all beginnings and endings. I guess that is what makes it all so special and why each moment needs to be captured and enjoyed.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

I inititally wanted to write this post on Valentine's Day but some sort of illness hit me like a ton of bricks over the weekend and haulted all activity. My plans of making our usual romantic dinner and surprising J with some sort of fun gift all went out the window as I was hugging a tissue box, full of cold and sinus medicine and so stuffy and feverish that nobody wanted to come near me. Instead, I closed myself off in our guest room area with my tissues, bottles of water, non-stop Sex and The City on tv and lots of sleep.

In my ever changing moods I still view Valentine's Day as one of the sweetest times around. Yes, I know, I hear the naysayers all around me calling it a Hallmark Holiday, a media coup to rake in money (and really, would that be so bad for the economy? Making money from love?) Or, that Valentine's Day is for the young or those in sappy relationships. I don't buy into this way of thinking. I think that the day is sweet and I like to celebrate it.

I know that my obsession started way back in Kindergarten when you are told to go home and make a Valentine box. Hmmmmm...new kind of concept but, okay. I remember taking a cereal box and getting started. Some kids used shoe boxes, some used oatmeal cylinder boxes, I used a cereal box. This was in 1970 so I have no idea what kids are doing, now. But, back then, you made really elaborate, colorful boxes. I liked to cover mine in tin foil. Then, I cut out all kinds of pink, red and white paper hearts and glued them all over. I mean, how bad can a holiday be if it uses the color pink? I remember being so proud of my Valentine box and carrying into class on Valentine's Day was almost euphoric. I was an odd kid and these are the things that excited me.

In my class, the teacher had all of us line our decorated boxes up and then we were all to go, in a line, and deposit our cards into the openings of the boxes. Again, I must stress that these were simpler times and everything wasn't fair or politically correct and not everyone emerged as a winner or with a prize. So, back then, you were not required to bring a Valentine for every single classmate. I know, it sounds cruel, but that is how my generation learned to navigate life. The hard cold facts of life. Not everyone won, not everyone was going to receive a Valentine. With that being said, I was a kind hearted kid and did give everyone a Valentine. I am not just saying that to make myself look good. I really did have a soft spot for everyone.

Anyway, you were not permitted to open your Valentine box until you got home. Back then, Kindergarten only last until noon and your mother picked you up so basically, you could start ripping into the box as soon as you got in the car. I chose to wait until I got home and very methodically took out each card. I was a nervous wreck because the amount of cards you received would very well tell you the social standing and where you fit in. I was a wreck. Also, you hoped that maybe the cute boy that helped you build a block house had given you a card.

My first Valentine Box revealed many cards, some with candy in them, some with early attempts as love letters, some asking me to be a best friend. I remember beaming with pride at my first real Valentine's Day.

Sure, after elementary school, you stopped making the pretty boxes and once high school hit, Valentine's Day took on almost a stalker like mission to make sure you even had a boyfriend for Valentine's Day. You could drop them, after, but by gosh...you were going to have a Valentine.

Anyway, I am still a kid when Valentine's Day hits. I love the hearts, the pink colors, the boxes of character cards that will be tucked into whatever kids use, now, and taken home and hopefully looked at as carefully as I looked at my first Valentine cards. It is a day of whimsy, a day of cheesey love songs, a day that makes it seem like love really could rule the world. It is a day that is like a shining star in the dead of winter.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

When I was young, I remember spending afternoons on my grandmother's swing, in her backyard. I have posted about this swing, before, but it's funny how when my mind and soul need comfort, I mentally put myself back on that swing and then mentally have a conversation, in my mind, with my grandmother or grandfather, on that swing.

In my ever changing moods, I do tend to draw from past experiences, past conversations and past comforting times in my life, to pull me through different obstacles of life, now.

The swing was a big, wooden, white swing that my grandfather had built and then he built a little shelter house type of thing for it. You could swing in the sun or rain, it didn't matter. I used to seek out my grandmother when I needed an extra dose of love and an extra dose of snark. She was my go-to for immediate life problems. I was one of her favorite things in the world and she would give me loving, soothing advice and then when I felt all happy and secure, again, she would tell me exactly how to go back and seriously kick ass in the situation. She didn't want me to be a wimp, she would say. She wanted me to stand up, be heard, know when to smile, know when to cry and then know when to turn around and give the person or the situation, a serious dose of me.

If my grandfather was involved in our conversation, he would sit, silently, humming. He was always humming some sort of tune. I think that is where I get my love of singing (although, I cannot carry a tune) and my humming while working. Anyway, he always had the same smile on his face as he listened to us. He loved my grandmother and let her give me her advice. When she was done, he would take up with his advice. He really didn't give advice, though. He was more apt to tell me a story or paint a picture of the type of person he expected me to be, how he wanted me to act in certain situations. He was all about being kind, working hard, being honest, the truth will win, no matter how much the truth may hurt or how much the truth may get you into trouble. He has been my moral compass, for my entire life. When I have chosen times to ignore his advice, it has come back to bite me, kick my arse, and then I think...why didn't I just remain on his path? He taught me to speak kindly, remain hopeful, look your enemy square in the eye and quietly let them know that you are watching them and that in the end, you will win. He hated loud mouthed, braggy, know it alls. He let them go on and on and on and he would just smile and walk away. My grandmother would get all up in that same person's business and tell them that they were not all that and then throw in one of her made up, famous, phrases and walk away. They were definitely the balance in my life.

In the many obstacles that I have faced in life, I have carried out my grandfather's advice and it has never steered me wrong. Inside, I carry my grandmother's advice because I really try not to get into shouting matches with people. For some reason, what worked for her back in the 1960s and 1970s, may be frowned on, today.

I find myself, right now, in a obstacle of life and I had lost all focus on both of their advice strategies. I have let myself run wild with so many emotions that I really never even knew existed in me. Last night, before I went to bed, I had to just sit and give myself the chance to revisit the swing. I had to first, count all that was right in my life. My husband, my daughter, our health, our life, our love. I had to visit the darker side of where this obstacle has come from and the thoughts it was evoking in me. When I put myself on the swing, and mentally put myself with both of my grandparents, I listened to what they would be telling me. I have run the emotions that my grandmother would have run with while forgetting the emotions that my grandfather would tell me to run with. For my own inner peace, I have to draw from him and his ability to stay calm, to stay focused, to stay quietly patient. I have to look that loudmouthed, braggy, know it all in the eyes, and know that in the end, the lice of the world do get exterminated. I have to remember that my grandfather would say, Rome wasn't built in a day, so I need to keep on my tasks until the end is reached and the obstacle can finally be dealt with. He would tell me not to lead with my emotions, but to lead with my hands and my heart, never taking my eyes off of the no good stuff trying to push in. Of course, my grandmother would say to put a nice shade of lipstick on, a cute pair of shoes and go straight up to the louse, and kick them where it counts.

After my mental swing with my grandparents, I now feel that I am better capable of moving ahead. I know that the good does always win, I just wish it didn't take so long to be the winner. I take comfort in knowing that I carry both of them on my shoulders, that I need both of their attitudes to get me through and I will try to hum a little song while I go forward.

My Ever Changing Moods

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Come along on my journey with my ever changing moods in this transitional time of my life. Change is never easy, stepping back is hard, but sometimes both are needed. I am a 40 something wife and mom figuring out what I want to do now that it's time to rediscover me.